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Talk:Rapture Metro
"the tram system is totally non functional" Is it ?? Or just that meager part of it we saw at the Olympus Heights/Apollo Square areas (and those a caricature that dont run more than about 300 feet each), The trams (to be useful) would run all over, criss-crossing Rapture (they can certainly carry more passengers than the Bathyspheres which may have been more like taxis for richer people). 20000 people have to get around Rapture -- to work/shop/trips back and forth every day. The bathysphere system we saw couldnt do that to well. Just the delay of entering/exiting each station and you might have to transfer at many stations to get across Rapture (and in Real Life hardly anybody goes to same place (those 8 seats..) for it to operate point to point efficiently.) Amusing note - how those carricatures of trolley cars are styled to look like the Bathyspheres. Too tiny- notice they didnt even have seats in them - they wouldnt fit to use them for playing (or be like the trains where you never went into the passenger compartment...)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by (talk • ) t15:36, August 6, 2013 (UTC). Please remember to sign your posts with ~~~~. Rapture Transit Authority : Seen on various signs. Doesnt sound like a business Before or after the Metro was organized ??? The Debate is Over? : Unfortunately you are making and spelling out in the wiki YOUR assumptions (while at the same time rejecting mine). Paupers drop was originally a slum under the tracks - a work camp, later with 'out of work' railroad builders and unemployed city construction workers and other squatters. That is NOT what it appears as in BS2, with its art deco buildings/businesses which wouldnt be there back before when it was ONLY a railroad maintenance facility - its obviously been redeveloped and THEN run down during/after the civil war. Sinclair would have built his 'Hotel' there in that redevelopment period (cheap real estate, cheap labor, low rent opportunity). You think he built it during the civil war? Grace talks about what it was before (allusion to Great Depression Hooverville), then another audio about the Limbo room closed by 'a' bankrun (would the Limbo have been there when the place was a squatter camp? Would anyone come there from Uptown as the posters mention, at THAT time? No evidence these were at the same time/events or even when .) Are you assuming that DURING the civil war when there was chaos in the streets, and the population was most interested in their survival, that all this rebuilding/development took place ? When the economic crisis was ALREADY started (and never ended - and worse after Ryan died)? Normalcy ended and Rapture spun out of control (or did we only travel through the bad parts and everything still was normal? -- not according to ALL of what they implied in BS1 - the disruptions were widespread). The bathysphere gets locked down (when? even that is vague), what kind of normal business can you now operate? Thats why I reason there was an earlier economic crisis which precipitated the AE bankruptcy - around the same time alot of the city construction ended 1951-1952 (people out of work and less business for the RR and RR expansion ending as well). The AE bankruptcy generated yet more out of work people and a cascade of crisis for secondary dependant businesses (the RR would be one of the largest industries in the city). The Metro came out of that crisis formed/intact and Rapture's economy adjusted and resumed enough for the ADAM boom to happen (1956 pneumo dedication, 10th aniversary etc...) The later DIFFERENT crisis still happened, but a civil war with killings going on in the streets (enough disorder for unclaimed bodies to be 'harvested) and emergency measures by Ryan - it isnt a 'business' environment any more (think more WW2 Germany vs WW2 America). Why not just leave it vague (like they did in the game). We saw the AE running (fine we were in only part of the city and the freight may never have gone away and tracks still operated to still be useable). The bathyspheres would have been developed early (1952 Austin Streamliner etc...), and when they worked well (the craze/fad) enough drove out the AE's passenger business when the Metro was consolidated (adding to the earlier factors that caused the AE bankruptcy). No sign of AE in BS1 - so no evidence either way there as to when. The Metro then is shown to have been a full well developed system (now shut down during the Civil war), hard to run THAT system when most of your business is dried up even before the shutdown. Prentice Mill's money wouldnt have done much (bail out the banks?...) in this later crisis if everyone is scrambling for ADAM to defend themselves - money is useless when there is nothing to buy (remember Ryans was paying people with ADAM by BS1 times). With the civil war happening, bail-out money doesnt make alot of sense (we find money just laying on the ground...). In the game there is no specification for the Mill storyline (AE history) to have happen during the Kashmir Massacre precipitated civil war (and whatever economic mess resulted from it - more like an almost total collapse with Ryan using martial law to keep things running while fighting Atlas). So why specifically link them in the wiki ? :I'm disinclined to enter into a discussion. The last time we tried one, it lasted forever and nothing came of it. A lot of your criticisms drive from the aesthetics of BioShock 2 and though I and others have tried to offer possible explanations, you remain unconvinced. Reciprocally, a number of the editors here are unconvinced by the points you've made. Whatsmore, it doesn't help that you erased most of your talking points on article Talk Pages, which was taken as bad form. :I'm not forcing my assumptions, I'm maintaining the general consensus of the site: that only one economic crash is known of. You're free to speculate about what you wish, and perhaps if BioShock or it's sequels had been written by economists or politcal scientists all of your concerns would've been properly addressed. But as it is it wasn't. There are logic problems that we just have to accept and adding your suppositions to the articles doesn't change the game canon. :Stuff you're asserting without solid in-game proof to confirm it: :*The Atlantic Express workers couldn't find work after the rail system was completed :*Pauper's Drop was redeveloped by Augustus Sinclair :*Rapture stopped expanding long before the Civil War :*Some economic crisis occurred in 1952 :*The AE was bankrupt and absorbed by 1952 :All of this shouldn't even be discussed here. If you want to defend your viewpoints, please start a blog or preferably a forum and invite the regular contributors so they can hear your opinions fresh. Unless there is a consensus from multiple people (AKA not just YOU) that the above mentioned points are accurate, this won't change. :Unownshipper (talk) 04:35, February 5, 2015 (UTC) :You assert that the whole story from Prentice Mill (his AE bankruptcy,etc) happens during an economic crisis/bankrun at the beginning of Raptures civil war. And thus all the pieces of the Metro history is defined by that time frame you assert. :Where is the 'solid' proof for that? :I offer ALTERNATE possibilities which are supported by all the other things Ive talked about. :grace Better_Times_with_Lamb :google hooverville :Wrong_Side_of_the_Tracks :Paupers Drop (as we see it BS2) is NOT the typical way a minor railroad maintenance facility is kitted out (my point is it looks to have fancy artdeco buildings and businesses and is a target for uptown swanks... the sinclair redevelopment thing is only a minor suggestion) Isnt this POSSIBLE evidence that more than a little time went by between that economic-crisis-spawned Hooverville, and what we later SEE in BS2. At some point Sinclair DID built his hotel/flophouse - so that isnt any kind of 'redevelopment' ? Anyway, I mention this to support the idea (POSSIBILITY) there was more than one economic crash, thus possibly that EARLIER one being the event causing the AE bankruptsy, and thus it COULD HAVE BEEN earlier than you assume. :That 'stopped expanding ' (or rather reduced construction if you have to nitpick) DIDNT/COULDNT have happened ???? If it could happen, couldn't it put some people out of work ???? That again is Support for the POSSIBILITY of an EARLIER economic disruption , causing an early 'hooverville' situation, opportunity for Sinclair, railroad stops expanding (more out of work people) , Mill's money used up to bail out banks, AE bankruptsy, etc... - and again thus questioning your Assumption that it HAD TO happened after Kashmir. : --- :You reject my assumptions - fine I didnt add them back in ( rather I removed the Metro page's text which linked civil war <->economic crisis as pertaining to the Metro (about its AE component etc) --- simply left it unsaid as one way or the other. :Concensus .... Should not the concensus be to NOT make assumptions (flatten it all out to talk about only what the game actually shows - my point -------> dont write it up as the AE bankruptcy happening at the 'economic crisis' of the Kashmir/Civil war starting) :Should not the same standards be adhered to (of no speculation/interpretation) for the main wiki page content for what other people write on the main wiki content pages? :If there is NO solid proof.... Shouldnt YOUR (or OP of that article) unsupported assumption be removed also? : 08:52, February 5, 2015 (UTC) ::Good lord, this is why I didn't want to get into a discussion with you. First of all, I'm not asserting my will on anyone, I'm just going by what is the generally agreed upon history. ::Ask yourself, if there was more than one economic crisis in Rapture, why didn't the writers and designers go to lengths to make this abundantly clear? Why isn't there an Audio Diary from Grace Holloway or someone else stating "I thought the economic slump in '52 was bad, but after that New Year's bombing and this run on the bank, I don't know how this city'll survive…"" or something like that? ::You bring up the point that there are architecturally nice buildings in the Drop and how in a proper Hooverville threre'd only be ramshackle structures and tents. Well, I refer you to the Deco Devolution: The Art of BioShock 2 book. Shantytown in BioShock Infinite is a better example of a Hooverville while Pauper's Drop (Level) is the end result of a bunch of slighly disparate ideas coming together to form Rapture's slum: ::Designer1: "Ok we want a ''Nighthawks-esque diner, plus this seedy Red-Light District, add a detective's office and a Harlem-style nightclub, throw in a holy-roller church, and let's give it all a film-noir/gangster feel." ::Designer 2: "''Whoops we've got too many elements for one neighborhood, so we'd better split them into two." Thus some elements go to Pauper's Drop and others to Siren Alley thumb|200px ::What is the architecture of a film noir movie? Art deco! So yes, I can see why the game makers made the Drop look the way it does from a style standpoint even if it it makes less sense from a logic standpoint. With all the endless criticisms you've previously brought against this game series you know that the makers aren't perfect. :: thumb|200px ::If all of that is still unstisfying to you, I have one easy answer: Rapturians take pride in their work. So the buildings have tiles and art deco elements and the Fishbowl Diner has shiny metal and neon lights. YOU don't know how much that costs in Rapture. Maybe that isn't stainless steel (just something inexpensive that resembles it), maybe whoever made the neon sign was able to do it for cheap, maybe the art deco elements are leftover from some other construction job. Not everyone in PD is unemployed. Maybe they can't afford to live in the next bracket up or in Apollo Square, but they can try to spruce up their living space. ::I don't take umbrage with the notion that Rapture stopped/slowed it's expansion. I take umbrage with YOU using it as a justification to you other points when there's no evidence of it in the game in the first place! ::Yes, I believe the AE could've gone bankrupt in the early days of the Civil War. ::We have only two diaries from Prentice Mill. In Just a Fad, he notes that Bathyspheres are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, the AE has stopped expanding, and he feels slightly dejected. There's nothing to indicate a date, so this could've happened early or late in Rapture's heyday. ::In The End of the Line he laments that he's penniless after emptying his cash reserves to help the banking crisis and now must sell the rights to the AE to the Austen Bathysphere Comp. who plans to decomishion the line. ::With this last diary, it's possible that this happened as early as January 1959. The Civil War turned life in Rapture upside down, but I find it unlikely that it came to a grinding halt right after the New Year's Riots (otherwise we wouldn't hear those BioShock Public Address Announcements encouraging vacations and shopping). ::I believe that the Atlantic Express could've already been a part of the Rapture Metro, which was owned by Anton Kinkaide. I don't recall anything stating that Kinkaide owned the Austen Bathysphere Co. So, the owner of the AB takes control of the AE, but before the Rail System could be dismantled, civilized society in Rapture completely comes to a complete end. I don't have a diary or poster or PA announcement that confirms this, but I don't need to come up with a previous recession for it to work. ::I'm sick of this logical falacy of "there's speculation on this site, so let's make more." We've been trying to remove or limit it as much as we can. Some interpretations have to be made, but stick to the Occam's Razor principle and go for the answer with the fewest assumptions. We have one known economic slump so let's utilize it. ::Unownshipper (talk) 01:26, February 6, 2015 (UTC) - ::At this point (after you read me The Riot Act about there not supposed to be speculation based on what players see in the game ) Im calling for removal of ALL the speculation on the main content pages. I say you are making LOTS of assumptions when (in this particular case) you declare that the economic crisis which bankrupted AE immediately followed the start of the Civil War (kashmir etc..) ::Ive offered more than enough evidence/possibilities that THAT is an assumption/speculation. ::And WHO says interpretations need to be made ? Present the 'facts' (repeat the content of the actual game), and if you want for Value-Added 'interpretation' have linkage off the main content where interpretations by different people can be explained. (That also will allow Value-Added for covering things like the story conflicts across the different games and peoples attempts to resolve those conflicts logically). ::why didn't the writers and designers go to lengths to make this abundantly clear? ::You need to ask that after seeing how vague so much of the whole story is about so many things? ::architecturally nice buildings ::PaupersDrop (maintenance juction 47) - worse than Hoovervile (google Hooverville or hobocamp -- images) For my evidence I only mention that to try to indicate it SEEMS like more than a little time has gone by (and the 'redevelopment' isnt something that is likely to happen during a civil war in a city in Survival mode/chaos) :: ::YOU'' don't know'' ::Your whole expositing here assumes YOU do ? My whole point now is its not clear, its not solid, therefore its speculation and assumption. Apply the same logic to yourself. You yourself use the word 'possible' over and over and to that I can answer with 'possibly not'. Shouldnt you require the audio diaries to explicitly spell out "THE AE BANKRUPTCY HAPPENED BECAUSE OF THE CIVIL WAR CRISIS" --- if thats your criteria? :: ::I take umbrage with YOU using it as a justification to you other points when there's no evidence of it in the game in the first place! ::So you take umbrage at me giving evidence for a plausible alternate explanation ? When YOUR 'evidence' doesnt disqualify my evidence and proposed alternate explanations? :: ::go for the answer with the fewest assumptions ::So disqualify YOUR assumptions and what are we left with? (lets face it the game leaves a LOT floating in vagary and unexplained). ::Simpler then to just not force an 'answer', when it really is speculation/interpretation, especially with the requirements you claim I am subject to. :: 07:47, February 6, 2015 (UTC) :: ::Can I just point out that Prentice never actually used the word Economic Crisis. He says Ryan wanted to give the Banks some 'Breathing Room' which could have just meant they wanted to make sure money was circulating when Rapture was closed off from the surface and the city was now up and running fully. ::Also it's highly likely that Sinclair wasn't the only business man interested in the drops realestate. Other people looking to make money in the drop would of helped investing in the districts appearance like Fontaine (Fontaine Clinics) and whoever owned King Pawn, The Hamilton, and Luxury Rooms. ::Night at the Kashmir (talk) 17:54, February 6, 2015 (UTC) (cont) :::"The Riot Act"… Sure that's fair. or Testxyz or whoever, I don't believe that's called for nor is your repeated assertions that I'm "forcing" something upon you like a fascist. Here and in previous interactions with you on this site, I've always tried to maintain civility with you. While some of the other users might just tell you to shut up and leave, I at least try to address your criticisms, but it can just be so unpleasant to talk to you. :::"You need to ask that after seeing how vague so much of the whole story is about so many things?" If you're not even going to pay me the respect of answering a serious question posed to you how do you expect me or anyone else here to consider your position? :::I'm sure Grace is being hyperbolic when she calls the Drop worse than a Hooverville. More than that, I believe she's referring to the drudgery and feeling of undesireabilityor abandonment from living "under the tracks" where "nobody was s'posed ta reside." :::"And WHO says interpretations need to be made?" Have you forgotten what game series this is? Whether it's Jack, Subject Delta, or Subject Sigma the player takes the avatar of someone exploring a "dead" city and they must figure out in a psuedo-archaeological way how the place ended up that way from Audio Diaries, second hand sources, body positions, etc. Interpretations are necessary to help the story unfold. I know you've voiced your dissatisfaction with this previously, but Ken Levine and the other designers thought that would be the most interesting/entertaining way to narrate the fall of Rapture. For example, we don't know that that's the corpse of Diane McClintock in Atlas' Headquarters or that he personally killed her or if she's even dead, but there's enough clues present in the scene that we can surmise what is written on her page. :::But fine, go make your call for removing everything that's not spelled out concretely in all of the articles. Will you do us the courtesy of creating a forum or blog so that all of the problem areas can be listed together, discussed with the other editors, and attacked in a methodical style? Something like User:Gardimuer's business project. By handling it this way, there won't be edit wars and constant back-and-forth edits. Who knows, maybe you'll find people who want to join you. :::To Night at the Kashmir, that's a fair assesment about Pauper's Drop, after all Dr. Hollcrofts was previously Reliable Pharmacy and I doubt a montebank life Hollcroft owned that place. The embellishments certainly could've come from other investors just as easily as from the denizens in the drop, I just didn't want the discussion to veer off unnecessarily into the seperate "Sinclair isn't a slumlord" discusssion again. :::As to your first point, that's supposing that Rapture did truly cut itself off from the surface. I totally understand Ryan's discontent with the smuggling ring: unregulated and unscreened goods (which could introduce something potentially harmful into the enclosed environment of Rapture) being brought into the city by unknown individuals (whose loyalty isn't known) outside of the Rapture Port Authority could easily ruin Rapture. However, I can imagine Ryan himself maintaining an emergency line with the surface so that if something was desperately needed or if a disaster occurred Ryan could contact his remaining loyal friends on the surface who could arrange something secretly and safely. :::But for the sake of your argument let's suppose that the city really did cut itself off and Ryan asked Mill to aid the banks. A post-Kashmir run on the banks would still ruin him, would it not? His money is now gone and his only option would be to sell the AE to survive, right? Or was that your point? I wasn't quite sure. :::Unownshipper (talk) 08:13, February 7, 2015 (UTC) :::Night at the Kashmir, ::: yes thats possible whichever timeframe (a shortage of money IS an economic crisis needing such an infusion). My reading of it was the transition of when alot of city building stopped because OF a planned 'cutoff to the Surface' (no new immigrants to need to expand for) - Ryans need to have the city be self-sufficient (for if the rest of the world blew up) was a likely reason for that (?) - or who knows - running out of money on the surface to bring in construction materials (not efficient to build up huge infrastructure to make the stuff local when tehre soon would be no need for it when building slower way down) OR risky if he wanted the secrecy and the risk increased as they bring in more people (or maybe by that time hardly anyone new wanted to come as post-WW2 world seemed better up there). But thats my reasoning for an early crisis (and source of out of work for a hooverville, but then the city recovering upto the time of Kashmir). AE already having competition (bathyspheres/trams) and it probably moved alot of cargo for the city construction , leading to it bankrupting (and adding to out of work employees - downsizing a big industry in Rapture). Mill's money he might have propped it up with being gone.... :::And a recovery had opportunities (Sinclair shown as one to be ready for that) and others no doubt (again my examples just showing a likely flow of time) Mill sold out, but would he really be poor to live in a shantytown/hooverville (I interpretetetd his shrine as from ex-RR men who were honoring the (dead) man who build/ran that big factor in Raptures history). There would always be some people who unfortunately fell and never adjusted and stayed poor -- though Sinclairs 'hotel' was far above a shanty town and the other parts of 'the drop' (minus any behind blocked doors) appear to have a fraction of its capacity and even those are too nice and were probably built on the recovery. Remember also we see it 7+ years AFTER kashmir and all the ad hoc living areas are similar to splicer hangouts we saw everywhere (that kind of thing was more like a shantyytown built in the old maintenance facility - tent city 'under the tracks' flooded with new poor people because of an economic crisis/depression). :::- ::: :::Unownshipper, :::So now its clear that I wont post any more interpretations/suppositions on the main pages. But as defined, the talk pages arent allegedly for that either (are they). ::: "If you're not even going to pay me the respect of answering a serious question posed" ::: It WAS an answer after you had said : ::: "why didn't the writers and designers go to lengths to make this abundantly clear?" '' ::: and repeatedly talked about needing solid proof, etc... ::: When YOU know how sketchy/incomplete alot of the storyline is (when we dont even know (even roughly) when many important events happened /audio diaries were made (and what the situation was at THAT time) . It wasnt critical to the game for the writers (and we saw the job they did on the DLC when they DID include dates). ::: ''Grace I think was being pretty literal (at least in the US Depression you could hit the rails/move and go someplace else to look for work and like a quarter of the population did just that). She later had her job at the Limbo (again the recovery and that between time I keep trying to suggest) and then the Bankrun/Crash when Kashimir happened (bombs mentioned)- when the Limbo closed ... ::: "And WHO says interpretations need to be made?" -- I was talking about the WIKI deciding which interpretations to put right into the articles (not the way the game largely left it upto the players) ::: I know you've voiced your dissatisfaction with this previously -- with SPECIFIC interpretations, written as if they are the only ones (Is there some way we can link off the main pages for that ??? Cluttering main 'fact' pages with multiple explanations isnt great/messy and 'talk' pages arent organized/formatted (many people coming to the Wiki might not even know they are there)). ::: I was considering starting on a blog page a list of all the (my) interpretation issues, and a possible process for standard links in the main content 'fact' pages (which are already organized by subject) to directly jump to the relevant interpretations (with anyones interpretation/impressions/explantions/suppositions welcome ). ::: 13:32, February 7, 2015 (UTC) .